Couple Secure Character Apartment with Help to Buy

By Thomas Homes on 02/12/2013

Jamie Boreham and his partner Christian had been renting a small cottage in Brightwell Upperton when they decided to look into buying a home. Although not from Oxfordshire originally, the pair had lived in the area for a long time and were keen to find somewhere near by.

After reviewing prices in the area, Jamie and Christian took the view that it wasn’t financially viable and they would need to continue saving.

However, after being introduced to the Help to Buy scheme, a government initiative which enables purchasers of new homes priced below £600,000 to secure a property with just a 5 per cent deposit, the prospect of buying their own home became much more real.

Jamie comments, "We had looked at buying about 12 months ago. At that time we realised we didn't have enough deposit to get what we wanted and the mortgage rate we were quoted was high as a result. This meant that it wasn't financially viable. We were expecting to have to save for another few years before we could do anything."

Being introduced to Help to Buy was the trigger that lead to us purchasing an apartment. Without it we would have had to keep saving and the apartment that we really loved may have been sold to someone else. We fell in love with the development at Fair Mile in Cholsey as soon as we saw it. The character of the building is stunning and the sense of history is impressive. I've always wanted to have a property with a long driveway but, unless I win the lottery at some point, this is a perfect alternative! It's great having a modern, energy efficient interior but still having the character of a really old building - it feels like we're getting the best of both worlds."

I can't think of a reason why someone wouldn't want to use Help to Buy. Without that help we wouldn't be on the property ladder - we always knew we could afford mortgage repayments but could not get started because of the size of deposit we needed. Now that we've moved in, we pay less for our mortgage each month than we used to pay to rent the cottage and that was a much smaller property. We're actually better off each month and we're paying towards an asset that will hopefully increase in value.

For further information on Help to Buy and the properties available at Thomas Homes Fair Mile development, contact the Thomas Homes sales office at Fair Mile on +44 (0)1491 652 515.